No, they don’t–but I will offer a compromise position if you read on.

I should begin by explaining that I am a longtime resident of Murray Hill, a neighborhood that was the epicenter of of fashionable Manhattan living around 1915. By the early 1990s, it was a little shabby but pleasant–it wasn’t decayed, just kind of old-biddy-ish. Because it was frumpy, apartments here were substantially cheaper than in the hip East Village to the south and the sleek Upper East Side to the north. Around a decade ago, because it was cheap but not culturally interesting, the uncoolest new arrivals in town started moving here: Frat boys and sorority girls, by the dozens, hundreds, thousands, all of them newly graduated and doing their brief stints in New York before pairing off and heading to the suburbs. Today, if you walk up Third Avenue in the thirties on a warm summer night,  you run a gamut of sports bars and loungey restaurants, the crowds pouring onto the sidewalk to smoke and/or vomit, the guys in banker-blue shirts and cargo shorts, the girls in handkerchief tops. All of them are saying things like “dude, I am SOOOOO wasted.”

My point being, these bars are not fit for children. Or adults. The only people who belong there are somewhere in between.

But (I hear you say) what about a nice neighborhood bar, where you can have a quiet drink in the evening with friends? Chances are, if it’s a place you want to be in New York, you’re not the only one who likes it, making it too raucous for babies. (Except at three in the morning, at which point if you’re bringing a kid in, your problems are above my pay grade.) As for the pleasant-sounding pub Matt brings up in his post, I’d say that such family-friendly places are essentially extinct in Manhattan. They’re the lifeblood of London, and in fact bringing a kid along to the pub now and then isn’t particularly out of line there.

But back to the truce I’d like to suggest: There is a point, from about 3 p.m. until the after-work crowd arrives around 5 or 6, when most bars are open but deserted.  How about we all agree to a kid-friendly hour or two, when strollers are welcome and kid-hostile people know to stay away. The plan works for everyone: Parents get to meet up and relax over a drink, their kids get the small thrill of exposure to minor adult vices, bar owners sell a few drinks they wouldn’t otherwise get to, and the grownups get the bar all to themselves later on.

Best of all: It’s not as if we new parents are staying up late anyway. May as well cede us the early shift.